Amir Tag Elsir is a Sudanese writer who is also a medical doctor. In this bleak “comedy”, translated by Chris Bredin and Emily Danby, about the first outbreak of Ebola in Sudan in 1976, he perhaps demonstrates the capacity of doctors to protect themselves from the harsher aspects of the job by resorting to humour. The free-form narrative spools somewhat randomly from the starting point of the death of protagonist Lewis Nawa’s mistress to the abrupt and disjointed introduction of numerous characters and events reminiscent of Jonas Jonasson’s The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared, but with less affection. Infection is, instead, the order of the day, and the Ebola virus itself is anthropomorphised as a gleeful, wily baddie. Like a medieval danse macabre, Ebola leads a parade of wretches to the grave, but Tag Elsir’s apparent disdain for his characters robs his narrative of empathy and leaves the reader indifferent to the fate of Lewis, the blind guitarist Ruwadi, the washed‑up magician Jamadi and the rest. Empathy isn’t the only possible approach to such horror, but it’s the natural response for many readers and we may feel uncomfortable without it.
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